Standards is a rock album by English singer, songwriter and musician Lloyd Cole released on 21 June 2013 by Tapete Records.

Cole said: I am conscious of having been maybe overly concerned with being dignified in my old age [...] I just thought to myself, 'what would happen if I just kind of let loose and not worry about whether it is appropriate to be making this music or not?

[1]The band assembled by Cole includes, among others, the rhythm section from his debut self-titled solo album (1990) and his follow up Don't Get Weird on Me Babe (1991) in the form of drummer Fred Maher and bassist Matthew Sweet.

The Independent described it as 'what may be [Cole's] best album... he's devised a sound replete with twisting, cyclical guitar lines and tints of keyboards.

[8] Record Collector said of the album: 'glittering literate... with its steely interlaced guitars and high/low cultural references is like Television and Lou Reed on a road trip in a top-down convertible, with a stack of jazz mags in the boot.

In contrast, The Telegraph said 'Each song is carefully crafted, filled with a kind of mordant, misanthropic wit that skates over deep emotions' and that Cole fails to 'recapture the firebrand innocence of his early pop classics.